germany 2006 begins in a few weeks. time to get a thread going for anyone's thoughts and opinions.

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ah ......the beautiful game!! joga bonita!!

tables and results

fundie, my personal opinion is that sven should have been sacked the moment he named his squad. his brief when he took over was to prepare a side for this tournament. the previous two tournaments were part of the preparation. this was supposed to be the coming of age of beckham, scholes, neville, butt, owen, gerrard, lampard, ferdinand, etc. .yet when he announced his squad he gave three spots to players with just one cap between them. that's failure in my eyes. as you say in your post, the friendlies were indeed worthless. sven had failed to prepare.

Chiva20, think you only see what you want to see, i agree with ref violent conduct

Watching Italy v Germany and first half the referee seems to be the star of the show.....

I fancy Italy need an early goal second half if they are to make their better quality count.... ;-)

Eccellente!

ggggggooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

what a game!!!!!!!!!!!! buzzin off me tits.

Bos are you italian ?

I think he's portuguese! ;o)

Only playing - I clearly stand alone supporting Rooney here - still firmly believe we are a stronger side (on paper) than any other squad this year. Will be gutted for some time to come!

Easily stronger than any other team on PAPER, but our managers have and will hold us back from reaching our potential any time soon.
Hoping France beat Italy in the Final, it would be a credit to Zidane.

i fear it is zidane's last game tonight, one way or another. hoping france will win as euro 2000 stills bothers me when the french robbed italy of victory in the 93rd minute after being played off the park. revenge, and all that .........!
chiva, gd potts, i don't know how you both can say that. england have a very good 1st eleven. outside of that 11/12 the quality drops significantly.

and so the final is decided.

france



will play

italy

Lee, you must be chuffed to bits, I didn't see the Italy game but everyone was talking about what a great game it was yesterday, can't see them losing against France.

certainly hope not, pete. should be a cracker of a final. france, an ageing team, zidane's last game, henry with a point to prove, the team finding their confidence and form, against italy, a team playing against a backdrop of scandal and corruption, totti starting to play for the team and not for totti, rock solid at the back , del piero's last chance, the team playing with style and confidence and enjoying themselves. what a game it's building up to be ......... which means the teams will cancel each other out and it will be a dull, drab game !!!! :)
poor portugal, their lack of a striker told in the end. such good approach play but no one there to finish it all off. some disgraceful theatrics by both teams, hopefully, that's the last we'll see of that!!! and probably the last we'll see of figo, what a player!!

A disappointly dull match last night, I thought. I switched on just in time to see ZZ take his penalty shot (didn't I say France would get lucky against Portugal?) but then France's playing got steadily more uninspired as the second half went on and if there had been another 10 mins' play then it could have been a very different story. I think the French had better find some motivation quickly if they are to have a hope of dispatching the Italians.

Gut feeling is telling me the Portuguese may just sneak it in the fight for third place - in spite of the Germans looking to be much better at getting the ball near the white spindly objects at the ends of the pitch. In the games I've seen, Portugal always seem to spoil it for themselves by firing their shots from about 500 yards and either sending the ball into orbit or giving the goalie all day to react. Maybe they'll manage to find a way to keep the ball within the stadium come the weekend.

Germany 3rd, Italy 2nd, and France 1st.
Italy will fail at the last hurdle just like they did last time. The lack of strikers will be the end, Luca Toni is basically a brutal donkey who had a good season, rather like Darren Bent. Del Piero is an ageing old boy who got lucky and Totti is shameful.

mr potts, i'm very happy with your predictions considering you've got fcuk all else right in this tournament !! :) could've done with france having a tougher game than the gentle workout they got last night, but, i think italy will be too srong for them. the only thing that worries me about france is the pace they have up front. bvut, then gain, the way this defence has played this tournament i think the french will be more concerned in trying to figure out a way through.

They ll breeze through your defence, do you still have Zambezi ( or Gianluca Zambrotta ) at right back? I havent really followed Italy but I heard about an injury to him. He could be a good buy for Chelski this season when Juve begin their challenge of the Italian Division Two Title.

Post deleted by Moderator.

blimey, was his next prediction that bad ?

Tipped Italy to win :-))